Review of Guyana MRV Process, Current Plans and Status'

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Review of Guyana MRV Process, Current Plans and
Status.

• Pradeepa Bholanath
• Guyana Forestry Commission
• October, 2009

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Structure of Presentation

• Background
• The MRVS Approach
• Outline of activities initiated and/or completed
  so far in the MRVS development process
• Plans for readiness as outlined in the RPP
• Assessment of existing data - Assessment of
  current institutional framework, resources and
  capacity
• Preliminary work on Forest Carbon Stock
  Assessment and Baseline Establishment
• Preliminary work in forest cover mapping and
  monitoring.
• Assessment of drivers of deforestation and
  degradation in Guyana
• Planned activities for MRVS
• Summary of next steps

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Background

• Guyana has over 75 of its land area covered in
  forest.
• The Government of Guyana aims to protect and
  maintain the forests in an effort to reduce
  global carbon emissions and at the same time
  attract resources to foster growth and
  development along a low carbon path.
• Guyanas draft Low Carbon Development Strategy
  sets out a vision through which economic
  development and climate change mitigation will be
  enabled through the generation of payments for
  forest services in a mechanism of sustainable
  utilization and development.
• Under the WB FCPF, Guyana submitted an RPP. The
  RPP is one component of the LCDS.
• One of the main outputs of the RPP is the
  development of the MRVS

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Background

• To enable the development of the MRVS, several
  key areas are identified to be addressed.
• There needs to be established a framework of
  accepted principles and procedures of estimation
  and reporting forest carbon emissions and
  removals at the national level as specified by
  the IPCC Good Practice Guidelines and Guidance
  for reporting on the international level.
• As well as an outline of the REDD Implementation
  strategy for the MRVS. This will also entail the
  assessment of a reference emissions level.

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• Initial Workshop held on 15th Sept, 2009. General
  Framework drafted

Reporting
National Measurement System for Forest Carbon
Low Carbon Development Strategy Policy Reporting
Outputs
Models
Data Collection
Satellite Data Ground Data Climate Data Forest
Classif Land Management Information Management P
ractices
Algorithms Data Fusion Raster Environment Spati
al Analysis
Emissions Removals Mapping and Visuals
Reporting National Accounts To meet
international obligations under UNFCCC (Emissions
Estimates and Projections) to enter Carbon
Markets
Verification of National Accounts Verified by
UNFCCC, Independent reviewers
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The MRVS Approach

• The RPP outlines the objective of the MRVS as
  being
• The objective of the monitoring system is to
  provide annual, accurate estimates of changes in
  forest cover and degradation with national
  coverage by a transparent, objective and
  verifiable methodology.
• The reporting system provides comparisons between
  monitoring system output summaries and the
  reference scenario to provide net changes in
  carbon for REDD accounting.
• The verification system requires that all
  procedures and data sources are objective,
  well-documented, secure and verifiable, and are
  subject to such peer-review and external audit as
  may be determined necessary. The Reporting and
  Verification Systems will be outlined and
  developed more fully later in the preparation
  process.

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Outline of Activities - Plans for Readiness

• Main areas outlined in RPP Establishment of
  Historic and Future Reference Scenario

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Existing Resources Assessment Data and Capacity
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Existing Resources Assessment Data and Capacity
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Existing Resources Assessment Data and Capacity
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Existing Resources Assessment Data and Capacity
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Preliminary work on Forest Carbon Stock
Assessment and Baseline Establishment

• Institutional structure - REDD Secretariat
  established
• Establishment of biomass measurement and
  monitoring plots (135)
• Soil and necromass data collected for some plots.
• Training commenced for root and tree sampling.

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Preliminary work on Forest Carbon Stock
Assessment and Baseline Establishment

• Biomass estimates using forest inventory data
  tabulated by diameter classes
• Total sequestered carbon as tree biomass in
  Guyana by forest type/vegetation classes
• Ecosystem carbon including soil and necromass
  by vegetation class, and carbon pools.
• Baselines estimated using historic data
• Stratification of main vegetation classes for
  biomass monitoring

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Vegetation map of Guyana (after ter Steege, 2001b)
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Total sequestered carbon as tree biomass in
Guyana
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Ecosystem carbon including soil and necromass
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Preliminary work in forest cover mapping and
monitoring

• In Guyana, as part of its Readiness Preparation
  Proposal to the FCPF, an initial, national level
  quick assessments were done on the drivers of
  deforestation and forest degradation a
  qualitative assessment based on national sectoral
  analysis and a quantitative assessment based on
  GIS and Remote Sensing Data.
• LANDSAT Images at national wall to wall coverage
• Change detection employed
• Hot spot spatial assessment at high resolution,
  aerial surveys and ground truthing also executed

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Preliminary work in forest cover mapping and
monitoring

• A total of 54, 210 ha of deforested area and 2626
  km of forest roads were mapped during the period
  2007-2008.
• Of this total, it is estimated that approximately
  34, 044 ha of deforested area is found within the
  State Forest Estate (SFE).
• Based on this Quick Assessment, the rate of
  deforestation in the SFE is 0.25 while the rate
  in Guyana forest cover is 0.29.

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Planned Activities for MRVS
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Key Issues Identified

• Anthropogenicity - in the land sectors relates to
  how directly emissions and removals can be
  related to human activities. The UNFCCC only
  calls for action, and therefore inventory, of
  anthropogenic emissions. The MRV system needs to
  be able to separately estimate anthropogenic and
  natural emissions.
• Degradation - In assessing degradation, the
  intensity, extent of area and technique to be
  used are important considerations. Very high
  spatial resolution sensors will be required for
  mapping low intensity degradation. Field
  assessments.
• Interannual variability due to changes such as
  climate can cause significant time-series
  volatility in annual emissions estimates. Various
  policy approaches are being discussed, and an MRV
  system should be in a position to take account of
  this.

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Key Issues Identified

• Leakage the potential for a climate mitigation
  project in one area to displace emission
  generating activity to another area, rather than
  abate total emissions. Policy frameworks and
  monitoring systems need to guard against such
  effects. National wall-to-wall monitoring of
  changes in land cover and land use supports such
  policy measures.
• Permanence the persistence of emissions
  reductions made in forest carbon activities.
  Permanence policies can be supported by
  continuous, time-series and spatially consistent
  forest monitoring.
• Baselines time-series consistent monitoring from
  archival data can provide a baseline of
  historical trends.
• Additionality where policy frameworks call for
  additionality, one or both of two key tests
  usually apply (1) that the activity will have
  effect beyond projections of business-as-usual
  baselines as described above, and/or (2) that it
  is an activity that would not be otherwise
  economically viable.

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Summary of Next Steps

• Finalise Terms of Reference
• Technical work to be done
• Identify resources and capacity needs
• Identify institutional and operational
  requirements
• Secure suitable provider/s for execution of
  outputs to work in collaboration with GoG.
• Execute and monitor activities

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